September 4th in History

Emperor Taizong

   626    Li Shimin, co-founder of the Tang Dynasty, posthumously known as Emperor Taizong of Tang, assumed the throne of China.  One of the greatest rulers in Chinese history, his accomplishments, both economic and military, were required study for subsequent emperors.  Under his reign, China included modern Viet Nam, Mongolia, and central Asia to Kazakhstan.  He ruled as Tian Kehan, which translates as 'Heavenly Khan".  His sister, Princess Pingyang commanded her own army in establishing the Tang Dynasty, overthrowing the preceding Sui Dynasty.  The Tang Dynasty lasted from 613 to 907, with a brief interruption when another Empress, Wu Zeitan, seized the throne and ruled in her own right as the 2nd Zhou Dynasty.

1260    The Senese Ghibellines, supported by the forces of King Manfred of Sicily, defeat the Florentine Guelphs at Montaperti. The conflict was part of the larger Investiture Controversy, the largest conflict between church and state in the middle ages.  It was temporarily resolved by the Concordat of Worms in 1122.  At issue was the secular powers and appointments of bishops and other church officials.  For example, it wasn't until 1059 that the College of Cardinals became the sole electors of the Pope in the Roman Catholic church.  There was an ongoing tension between the jurisdictions of clerical courts and secular courts.  In 1075 the Dictatus Papae claimed for the pope the sole power to depose an emperor, while Kings and Emperors appointed bishops within their borders.  The 'Welfs', italianized Guelphs, supported the papal / secular power faction, while the  Wibbelingens, italianized to Ghibellines, supported the Holy Roman Emperors secular power faction. This conflict dragged on until the Guelphs finally won in 1289, after which they continued fighting with each other as black Guelphs and white Guelph factions.  The Ghibellines used as their symbol the war banner of the

Chinese Emperor Wanli,
Ming Dynasty

1563  Birth of Wanli, Emperor of China in the Ming Dynasty, from 1572 at the age of 9, to his death in 1620.  During his reign in China, he repelled new invasions of Mongols, defeated the Japanese invasion of Korea, and put down the Yang Yinlong rebellion.  While his reign began well, he was a less conscientious and successful ruler at the end of his reign, when the Manchu began to conquer and occupy the edges of his territory.  It was also during the reign of Wanli that the first Jesuit missionary arrived in China.


1781    Los Angeles, California, is founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola) by 44 Spanish settlers.

1784   Death of César-François Cassini de Thury, Comte de Cassini, French astronomer and cartographer, member of the French Academy of Science, the third generation of the famous family of astronomers. (b. 1714)

1797    Coup of 18 Fructidor, an V, in France. The coup was another bloody episode in the French Revolution (Napoleon Bonaparte had a part in it). Fructidor was one of the new months that were created as a result of the Revolution, the twelfth month of the French Republican Calendar, used from 1793 to 1805. 
Some of the innovations, like the changes to the weights and measures system, which later evolved into the metric system made sense, but the calendar changes never really caught on.  It replaced months of approximately 4 weeks, and weeks of 7 days each, with 12 months with new names, having three weeks in them, and weeks were 10 days long.  The 'an V' of the coup translates as 'year 5'; they started counting years all over again as well, from the revolution.

horloge republicaine

There were no longer 24 hours in a day, there were 10, and hours lasted 100 decimal minutes, and minutes lasted 100 decimal seconds.  They had to make special decimal clocks to accommodate the change, and this was mostly abandoned by 1795, although some cities used it until 1801------which led to a lot of confusion in France, and everywhere else.

During  the beginning of the new year, fall had the new months Vendemiare (from Latin vindemia / grape harvest), Brumaire  (from French brume, fog), and Frimaire(from French frimas, frost); winter was Nivose (from Latin nivosus, snowy), Pluviose (from Latin pluvius, rainy) and Ventose (from Latin ventosus, windy); spring was Germinal (from Latin germen, germination), Floreal (from Latin flos, flower), and Prairial (from French prairie, pasture) and summer ended the year with Messidor (from Latin messis, harvest), Thermidor / some calendars, Fervidor, (from Greek thermon, summer heat), and ended with Fructidor,(from Latin fructus, fruit).  The British response was more fun; they mocked the new French calendar, calling the months Wheezy, Sneezy and Breezy, Slippy, Drippy, and Nippy, Showery, Flowery, and Bowery, and Wheaty, Heaty and Sweety.  

Weeks were now called decades, and the new days were named primidi (first day), duodi (second day), tridi (third day), quartidi (fourth day), quintidi (fifth day), sextidi (sixth day), septidi (seventh day), octidi (eighth day), nonidi (ninth day), and decadi (tenth day).  Five or six (leap year) days were tacked on to the end of the year each fall as celebration days.

You really, really don't want to know what they did to replace holidays and saint's days... 

1812    The Siege of Fort Harrison begins when the fort is set on fire in the War of 1812.  The fort was hastily built specifically for this war, and named in honor of General Harrison, who later became President William Henry Harrison.  Another commander of the U.S. forces was Zachary Taylor, who became a later president as well, and as both Harrison and Taylor commanded the fort it was sometimes known as the 'fort of the two presidents'.  Native Americans fought against the Americans with the British, from the Miami, Potawatomi, Kickapoo (yes, they're real), and Winnebago tribes.  The War of 1812 had gone badly for the United States; this was the first major land victory in the war for the U.S.

1862    General Robert E. Lee takes the Army of Northern Virginia, and the war, into the North in the Civil War in the Maryland Campaign, aka the Antietam Campaign.  The Battle of Antietam, fought between the Confederate forces of General Lee and the Union forces of General McClellan was the bloodiest single day of fighting in the entire Civil War.

Napoleon III

1870    Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed and the Third Republic is declared.  The Third Republic, (which used conventional calendars and clocks), was the government of France from 1870 to 1940 when the Nazis imposed the Vichy government. Napoleon III was the earlier Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew,  and he was named Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte like his uncle was involved in extensive wars, including the Crimean War, Conquest of Senegal in Africa, the Second Opium War, the Cochinchina War which resulted in the French conquest of Viet Nam, the Second  Italian War of Independence, invasion of Mexico, putting in place the French Emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlotta, the Second Italian War of Independence, the Taiping Rebellion, the Korean campaign, the Boshin War, and his final military effort, the Franco-Prussian War which Napoleon III lost, ceding Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire.  Napoleon III's Second Republic was overthrown 3 days later.

Geronimo photo

1884    The United Kingdom ends its policy of penal transportation to New South Wales in Australia.

1886    After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo, with his remaining warriors, surrenders to General Nelson Miles in Arizona.

1888    George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.

1894    In New York City, 12,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions.

Shenandoah

1923    Maiden flight of the first U.S. airship,a dirigible, the USS Shenandoah ZR-1.

1941    A German submarine makes the first attack against a United States ship, the USS Greer.

1949   The Peekskill Riots erupt after a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York.  Over 140 people were injured, and vehicles severely damaged by rioters chanting 'go back to Russia, you niggers', 'white niggers', as police observed without intervening to stop the violence.  Some of those alleged to have `committed the violence were members of Veterans of Foreign War chapters and American Legion chapters, expressing rabid anti-communist and racist sentiments.  Robeson had been outspoken on behalf of civil rights and against the Klu Klux Klan.  Included in the shouted slogans of the protesters were anti-Semitic and racist slurs.

1951   The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, California, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.

1956   The IBM RAMAC 305 is introduced, the first commercial computer to use magnetic disk storage.

One of the Little Rock 9,
with National Guards

the Edsel

1957    Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, calls out the National Guard to prevent the nine African American students, known as the Little Rock Nine, from enrolling in Central High School in defiance of a unanimous decision of the SCOTUS.  Faubus later moderated his position on segregation, and in 1984 supported Jesse Jackson in the presidential primaries

            Debut of the Ford Edsel.

Schweitzer

1965   Death of Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian physician and missionary, theologian, humanitarian, organist, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1875)

1972   Swimmer Mark Spitz becomes the first competitor to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games.

1975   The Sinai Interim Agreement relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict is signed.

1977   The Golden Dragon Massacre took place in San Francisco, California.  The Massacre was the result of a failed assassination attempt at the Golden Dragon Restaurant at 2:40 A.M.  Five people were killed including two tourists, 11 were injured as the result of gang warfare between two Asian gangs, the Joe Boys, and the Wah Ching.  None of the people killed or injured in the massacre were gang members.  The incident led to the formation of the San Francisco Police Department's Asian Gang Task Force.

1984   Brian Mulroney leads the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party to power in the 1984 federal election, ending 20 years of nearly uninterrupted Liberal rule.

1995   The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.

1998   Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.

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